


You Did, You Do

by marquis



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, Would He Touch You Ficathon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-15
Updated: 2013-05-15
Packaged: 2017-12-11 22:09:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/803789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marquis/pseuds/marquis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Liam hurts himself, and under the influence of some powerful painkillers, he says some things that maybe he wouldn't have otherwise.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Did, You Do

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this](http://eachtoeach.livejournal.com/133002.html?thread=1492618#t1492618) prompt on the [Would He Touch You LiLo Comment Ficathon](http://eachtoeach.livejournal.com/133002.html#t1494154), which you should all totally go to. More prompts and fills would be much appreciated by everyone (read: _me_ appreciated by me).
> 
> This was really fun and quick to write and I hope you all enjoy it because I certainly did. :D

It’s never been something they thought about, although perhaps they should have. _Liam_ , of all people, should have. But it apparently didn’t occur to either of them that mountain biking on their first weekend off was the One Thing That Should Not Be Done While Drunk, and as much as Louis would like to point the finger at someone else, he knows that this is entirely and completely his fault.

Although the champagne had been supplied by the hotel. And the bikes had been supplied by someone who should have known that they weren’t in top form. And the signatures on the releases may well have been forged. The finger could presumably be pointed at any number of people, even Harry, who had told them so very flippantly to go and pester someone else when he decided it was time for a nap.

Mostly it can be pointed at Liam. Or Louis. Probably Louis. He doesn’t want to talk about it.

The doctors say it’s going to be alright, anyway. Liam’s going to be on crutches for a while, which is going to make the rest of the tour absolute shit for him, but he’s not the first one to have to go through it and they’ll work it out somehow, just like they always do. Louis will carry him everywhere if he has to.

(No, he won’t.)

Anyway, the doctors have said that he’s waking up now, and that means that Louis can go in. The door is shut and the curtains on the window are pulled low, blocking out the bright sun and the picture of springtime outside. It’s a little depressing, Louis thinks, but he’s afraid that touching anything will get him in trouble, which he certainly does not need any more of at this particular moment. He sits gingerly on the edge of the bed and pokes Liam in the stomach, wary of the cast on his leg.

Liam moans. “Nng?” One of his hands twitches. Louis fights down both the guilt and the giggles.

“Liam?” he questions softly. “How are you feeling, Li?” There’s nothing to indicate that Liam has even heard him, not even another moan, but he thinks he might see Liam’s eyelids fluttering, so he leans forward and taps him on the nose gently. “Psst,” he tries, “Li!”

And this time Liam does hear him. Louis squints in the dim lighting to see his eyes flutter open. They slide from the ceiling to Louis’ face, struggling to focus in on something. Louis decides to give him a minute, watches as his nose scrunches up and his fingers twitch a second time. “Lou?” he asks finally, and Louis lets out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding.

“You sound really out of it, love,” he teases. “What did they give you?”

Liam waves a hand and almost smacks Louis in the process. “M’fine, promise.” Louis watches as he struggles to sit upright, pushing even as his elbows give out from underneath him and he collapses back onto the bed. “Jus’ a lil – a lil tired, tha’s all.”

That’s understandable, Louis thinks, and maybe it was kind of rude for him to just come barging in and wake Liam up like he did. He pets at Liam’s hair – it’s a nice length now, long enough that his fingers have something to play with, although they still don’t get tangled up like they used to – and tries to get him to relax and lie flat like a model patient should. “Shh, love, that’s alright. Go back to sleep; we’ll talk later.”

Liam giggles. It doesn’t seem as though he has a particular reason for it, either, and Louis hopes that it just ends there and Liam will listen and go to bed, but. It doesn’t. Of course it doesn’t. Because Liam is drugged to high heaven and hardly behaving like a responsible young man.

“You called me _love_ ,” he mutters, voice still thick. Louis feels his face heating up just a little bit, but makes a valiant effort to ignore it.

“I’ve called you that before, you know.”

“Do you _love_ me, Louis?” Liam asks.

Normally it would be funny, hearing Liam talk like this, but it’s really just making Louis feel uncomfortable. He tries not to blame it on the subject. “Of course I do, Li. Now go to sleep.” His own voice sounds thick now. He swallows.

Liam finally seems to relax into the bed, eyes shutting again. “No, you don’t,” he grumbles. His eyebrows furrow and he looks a little bit upset. It’s adorable; Louis doesn’t tell him as much. “Not like I love you, anyway.”

And oh, thank _god_ the other boys aren’t there to see Louis’ face now.

\--

Liam’s head feels very fuzzy. So does the rest of him, actually, but he thinks that’s mostly because it’s overwarm on the bed. There are at least two other bodies on it with him, if not three. He thinks to himself that there’s no way this hospital was prepared for anything like One Direction cuddling sessions.

The morphine is wearing off now, or at least it should be, but every time he wakes up it seems like he’s falling back asleep, and he’s a little bit afraid it’s going to happen again now. He’s spent enough time in hospitals over the course of his lifetime; he’d much prefer to be outside or back at the hotel, or at _least_ on the tour bus.

He supposes that it could really be much worse. At least his band is here, gathered up and watching the television together. The room is still just as dark as it has been every time Liam’s woken up, lit up by the light glow of the screen and the moonlight outside the window.

Every time he’s woken up, it’s been nighttime. He would ask where the day went, but mostly, he knows. He slept it away in a medicated stupor while his bone was set and bandaged up, wrapped in a cast that makes his leg about ten pounds heavier than it should be.

The credits of the film start rolling and the boys start to shift around. He must be very obviously awake now, because Zayn starts to rub little circles on the inside of his wrist. “Hey, 007. How’re you feeling?”

Liam nods and ignores the way he can feel his pulse in his brain. “Can I go yet?”

“Nurse said it’s probably best to keep you here until the meds wear off, mate,” Harry supplies. He picks up the chart from where it’s sitting beside the bed and flips through it. “Even then, though, it’s pretty late. It would probably be easier to spend the night.”

“And fight my way through the fans tomorrow?” Liam asks. “That hardly sounds like the easier choice here.”

Louis gets up to change the movie in the television, effectively deciding for them. “What next, boys? We’ve got _Aladdin_ and _Mulan_ left before we’ve got to start in on the ones we’ve never heard of.” He seems determined not to make eye contact with anyone, looking only at the two plastic cases in his hands.

It’s not like he’s imagining it, either. Niall nudges Harry and shifts the entire bed just a little bit, crammed as it is, and Zayn rolls his eyes at Liam.

“ _Mulan_ , I think,” Harry says. It breaks the awkward silence, at least for a minute, and Louis nods before turning to slip the disc into the player.

He must be feeling guilty, Liam thinks, because that’s the only logical explanation he can think of. It had been Louis who suggested that they go mountain biking anyway, if he remembers correctly, but. Louis shouldn’t be feeling guilty. Liam had agreed. He’d signed the releases and, most importantly, he was the one who drove himself into the tree roots and thrown himself. There was nothing to feel guilty about.

So when Louis goes to sit on the floor, Liam decides he’s going to eliminate any hard feelings that Louis is imagining. “No, Lou,” he says, pulling his good foot up a little bit. “Come on up here with the rest of us.”

Zayn squeezes his wrist gently and Liam looks over at him, a little bit confused, but then Louis is getting up and climbing into bed and there’s hardly any room to breathe, let alone communicate with one another. Louis still isn’t looking at him, curled up by his cast and looking for all the world like a puppy that’s been abandoned somewhere very, very sad.

The movie plays and that’s all there is for a while. Liam can feel Zayn’s breath evening out next to him, can hear Harry’s little huffs that signal he’s unconscious, and eventually, even Niall is snoring through the emperor’s praise. Louis never relaxes, though, poised over Liam’s leg like a criminal ready to flee from the scene. The credits start rolling again, and Liam, knowing now that there’s no way he’ll be going back to sleep for quite some time – the medicine’s worn off, he can see clearly – nudges Louis with his toes.

Louis jumps like he’s been bitten. Liam bites back a laugh.

“You alright, Lou?” he whispers.

There’s no immediate response. Louis is still sitting, tense and still, at the edge of the bed. Then, quietly, “Li, do you remember waking up earlier today? When the sun was still up?”

“No,” Liam replies, struggling to free himself from the tangle of limbs and sit up straight. The other boys could sleep through an earthquake, he knows, but he’d still like to be careful. “Did I?”

There’s a little hint of a smile, a little flash of the light from the telly on bright teeth. “Yeah, you. Um. You did, Li. And you were talking to me. It was before the other lads got here.”

“You didn’t get a video of me being stupid or something, did you?” The air feels heavy around them all of the sudden, pressing in on Liam. There’s a secret that Louis is hiding, Liam knows; he’s spent enough time around him to know every tone of his voice, as well as what it means. Even if it doesn’t always make sense to him right then.

Louis lets out a little laugh. “No, um. Nothing like that. You did say… _something_ , though.”

That is not at all comforting. Liam searches his memory, brain running backwards and forwards through everything he knows. There was the crash itself, the ride in the ambulance, waking up to find Niall pulling at his socks and whining about he wanted a pair. Nothing between, nothing at all that could possibly explain Louis’ behavior.

“What was it? Did I… did I say it was your fault or something, Louis? I’m – well, it wasn’t, first off, and I’m sorry if I made you feel like it was.” Liam watches as Louis smiles again, tiny and not entirely honest. “Oh god, I did. I made you feel responsible for this, didn’t I?”

“No, no,” and Liam had forgotten that they were whispering until now, until Louis blew those two words out like they were just a puff of air. He moves to face Liam now, leaning in close until the blue around his pupils seems highlighted to Liam even in the dim light. “You, ah. You said you loved me, Liam.”

And, well, while it’s not exactly what Liam was expecting, it’s not entirely too surprising. It could have been worse, anyway; there’s any number of elaborations on that very statement, about how _much_ he loves Louis and what he’d like to _do_ about it, that would make both of them even more uncomfortable than they might’ve ever been before.

If anything, this is good. This is nice. Liam doesn’t have to figure out how to tell Louis now, because he already has. It’s been a problem topic for the past few weeks, where he debates between telling Louis the truth about his and Dani’s breakup or waiting for it to just blow over and act like the two ideas are completely unrelated.

Liam’s heart doesn’t seem to agree with his brain, though. It’s pounding away, fast and loud, like a little bird trying to get out. The blood is rushing to his face, and he’s _so_ relieved that Louis probably cannot see it anyway. He clears his throat and tries to keep his throat steady.

“Did I?” he asks. He ignores the way his voice cracks halfway through, but Louis doesn’t.

“You did! And you _do_.” The grin on his face could sell a million records, and Liam feels a terrible rush of fondness when he realizes that it’s for _him_. “God, why didn’t you just say so, you twat? I’ve been pining for nearly three years!”

And, well, if the other boys wake up while they’re kissing, it’s no one’s fault at all. The hospital needs to invest in larger beds, that’s all.


End file.
